Recently in Chocolate & Pastry Shops category:

Two things have surprised me recently*. One is the sudden surge of small-scale ice cream shops that have opened in Paris. Which means my ship has definitely passed on opening my own place as others got to it first. Shops like Senoble, Glaces Glazed, Une Glace à Paris, Sucre Glace, and La Paleteria are churning out ice cream across Paris, some even staying open in…

There’s no shortage of chocolate shops in Paris. Many of them are concentrated in areas like the Marais or Left Bank, which are swankier places set up shop, but offer easy access. So in what are called the “double-digit” arrondissements, you’ll find more quirky places, and you’ll never know what you might come across if you wander around them. Having dinner one night at Churrasqueira…

Paris is known for its classical ice cream shops, as well as a few Italian-style gelaterias, but until a few years ago, there weren’t any young people forging out on their own, churning up more contemporary flavors of ice cream and sorbet for modern palates. Don’t get me wrong, I love glace au chocolat and glace au caramel beurre salé, but I’m no fuddy-duddy, and…

I’m always on the lookout for new bakeries and pastry shops that have opened in Paris. Although to be honest, it’s hard to keep up these days! The number of new boulangeries and pâtisseries that are focusing on everything from artisanal grains to organic flours, are spreading like wild yeast across the city. I’d met Alice Quillet a few years back, when she, and her partners…

From the outside, Compagnie Générale de Biscuiterie is a low-slung place, resembling a workshop of some sort, rather than a pâtisserie, located on the way up to Sacré Cœur, in Montmartre. I made the trek up there to check it out because I was interested in the one thing the low-key place makes: cookies. The French use the word “cookies” primarily to refer to chocolate…

I used to cross Paris to buy a loaf of bread. That was when I was more of a débutant and kept a list of bakeries that I wanted to visit, and I’d make it a point to check off as many as I could, to try their bread. But few in Paris go farther than their local boulangerie to get their bread. Since it’s…

I snuck my way into the workshop of master Paris chocolatier Jean-Charles Rochoux. When asked which is the best chocolate shop in Paris, it’s hard to pick just one, but his boutique is at the top of my short list. Each chocolate is hand-crafted in the kitchen just below the shop, where a small team of chocolatiers and Monsieur Rochoux dip, sculpt, mold, and enrobe…

I was recently part of a panel on France24 television to debate the subject: “The argument over French cuisine.” Rather than being a debate, though, it was more question-and-answer session once the cameras were rolling. But beforehand, the four of us on the panel had a very lively discussion in the lobby about the subject, which at one point, I stopped and told the producers that this was…

When people ask me “Why did you move to Paris?” I’ll usually stop, point to the nearest cheese shop or bakery, and let them figure it out for themselves. There are a lot of pastry shops in Paris, over a thousand of them. But the first was Stohrer, which opened in 1730 by pastry chef Nicolas Stohrer, the pastry chef for Louis XV of France and his…